John C. Fremont

John Charles Fremont (21 January 1813-13 July 1890) was the military governor of California from 19 January to 1 March 1847 (succeeding Robert F. Stockton and preceding Stephen W. Kearny), a US Senator (D-CA) from 10 September 1850 to 13 March 1851 (preceding John B. Weller), and Governor of Arizona from 6 October 1878 to 11 October 1881 (succeeding John Philo Hoyt and preceding Frederick Augustus Tritle). Fremont was an explorer, a US Army officer during the Mexican-american War, and the Republican Party's first presidential nominee.

Biography
John Charles Fremont was born in Savannah, Georgia in 1813, the son of a Canadian immigrant schoolteacher and an American mother. He served in the US Navy before joining the topographical corps, and he took part in expeditions to the American West in 1842, from 1843 to 1844, and in 1845. He served as a US Army major during the Mexican-American War, and he took control of California from the California Republic in 1846. Fremont went on to serve as military governor of California from 19 January to 1 March 1847, and he was court-martialled for mutiny and insubordination over a conflict that occurred when he was Governor of California. His sentence was commuted and he was reinstated by President James K. Polk, and he resigned from the Army to lead a private fourth expedition. After his expedition ended in 1849, he settled in Monterey, California while buying cheap land in the Sierra foothills. When gold was found on his Mariposa ranch, he became a wealthy man during the California Gold Rush, but he was soon bogged down with lawsuits over land claims. The US Supreme Court allowed for Fremont to keep his propety, and, from 1853 to 1854, he surveyed the route for a transcontinental railroad. In 1850, he was one of California's inaugural US Senators, and he joined the new Republican Party in 1854. In 1856, he was the party's first presidential candidate, but he lost to Democrat James Buchanan when the Know Nothings split the vote.

During the American Civil War, Fremont was given command of the Department of the West by President Abraham Lincoln, and he had successes during his tenure. However, his autocratic control of the department and his issuing of an edict freeing slaves in his district without Washington DC's permission led to President Lincoln removing Fremont for insubordination. In 1861, Ulysses G. Grant promoted Fremont, and he defeated the Confederates at Springfield, the only Union general to defeat the Confederates in the west that first year. He briefly served in the Mountain Department in 1862, and he was criticized for his failures during the Valley Campaign. He retired from the Army in 1864 and attempted to run for president as a member of the Radical Republicans, but he resigned before the election. He lost much of his wealth in the failure of the Pacific Railroad in 1866 and in the Panic of 1873, but he went on to serve as Governor of the Arizona Territory. He died destitute in New York City in 1890.